Urban Mobility Research in India

Prof. (Dr.) Ashish Verma is Convenor of ‘IISc Sustainable Transportation Lab. (IST Lab.)’. He is Ph.D. from IIT Bombay and is currently serving as Professor of Transportation Systems Engineering at the Department of Civil Engineering, Indian Institute of Science (IISc), Bangalore, India. Further, he was Visiting Professor at ITMO University, Saint Petersburg, Russia, during 2016 and Visiting Fellow at Queensland University of Technology (QUT), Brisbane, Australia, during 2019. Before joining IISc, he has served in IIT Guwahati and Mumbai Metropolitan Region Development Authority (MMRDA). His research interests are in sustainable transportation planning and policy, integrated public transport planning and management, transport and quality of life (QoL), transport and climate change, modelling and optimization of transportation systems, travel behaviour analysis and modelling, pedestrian and crowd flow modelling, driver behaviour and road safety, intelligent transportation system (ITS), traffic control and management, etc. He has authored more than 250 research publications, including more than 95 journal publications in the area of sustainable transportation. He has also authored a book on ‘Public Transport Planning and Management in Developing Countries’ published by CRC Press and another book on ‘Integrated Public Transportation System – Planning and Modelling’, published by VDM Publishing House Ltd. He has also been Co-Editor of Conference Proceedings of WCTR-2016, 5th CTRG, RATE-2018, and 6th CTRG (currently under processing), published by leading publishers, Elsevier and Springer. He is Former Editor of journal ‘Transport Policy’, Elsevier; Associate Editor of ‘Urban Rail Transit’, Springer, and ‘Journal of Modern Mobility Systems (JMMS)’, Mason Publishing. He is Founding and Immediate Past President of the society Transportation Research Group of India (TRG). He is presently serving as Steering and Scientific Committee Member of World Conference on Transport Research Society (WCTRS) based on University of Leeds, UK. He has also been recently elected as Hony. Secretary of Institute of Urban Transport (India). Shri M. L. Chotani has a master’s degree in city and Regional Planning from School of Planning, Guru Nanak Dev University, Amritsar (1975), and a postgraduate diploma in Urban Survey and Human Settlement Analysis from International Institute of Aerospace and Earth Science (ITC), Enschede, the Netherlands (1987). He was superannuated from the post of Additional Chief Planner in August 2009 from Town and Country Planning Organization, Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs, Govt. of India. He is Fellow Member of Institute of Town Planner (India) and Life Member of Institute of Urban Transport (India). Currently, he is working as Consultant and RDO in IUT. He has more than 48 years of experience in urban planning, urban transport, appraisal evaluation and monitoring of urban projects, capacity building, and teaching. He has vast experience in preparing master plan, regional plans, district plans, comprehensive mobility plan toolkit, and evaluation of urban transport projects. He was associate in study on E-Rickshaw in Indian Cities, City Wide Integrated Multimodal Transport Toolkit and Bus Sector study in India. He has been involved in Capacity Building Programme for officials from Metro Rail Companies and Sustainable Urban Transport Project of UN and World Bank for State Govt. Officials working in Transport Sector. Currently, he is associated with the studies on Impact of Metro Projects and Innovative Financing. He has been involved in the annual flagship event on Urban Mobility India Conference cum Expo. being organized by the Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs as well as preparation of conference proceeding thereof since the last 10 years. He is Member of editorial board of the Research Journal of IUT